While shopping through cone yarn on ebay I see a lot of them with numbers such as 2/24 in their description. Can someone please explain to me how to decipher them. I know it has to do with the ply and/or thickness. Which is which, and is there a site that clearly explains this? I can'tfins one.

IN FACT: This type of information would be good to have here among the teaching info on this site. Hint/hint.

It would save me a lot of time looking through the cones if I knew how to read the numbers because 9 times out of 10 the description does not tell you if the yarn is fingering, lace, DK, etc. and it is hard to tell from the picture.

ALSO: Does YPP stand for yards per pound?

mwhite

10-12-2008 04:42 PM

YPP does stand for Yards Per Pound.
Generally, light fingering and lace is sold like this. One number represents the ply, the other the thickness or weight as in 8/2, which is size 8 with 2 plys. The larger the number for the thread size, the smaller it is..... so 5/2 and 3/2 are thicker, 8/2, #10, 50/2 is super fine.
Hope this helps.... Oh yeah, it makes sense that the smaller the thread, the more YPP there are.